It was something, even if it was only this.
Dawn descended over the room.
Cal sat up in the king-sized bed, naked, wishing he hadn’t fallen asleep, staying with her despite what he’d said earlier.
“Have breakfast with me,” Reegan muttered, scooting closer to him, stroking his back.
“I have to–”
“What, work?” She laughed.
“Yes.”
“It’s early, Cal.” She yawned. “Have breakfast with me.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Not even for me?” She pulled the sheet down and opened her legs, her long, kinky hair spreading over the pillow and her chest, the ends curling near her belly button.
“I don’t fuck married women.” The early morning hours had a way of clouding a man’s judgment, but now light crept in. The sun had risen.
“Really?” she guffawed. “We... You had me again and—”
Cal shoved the covers off and stood.
“Wait.” Flying to a seated position, she grabbed his hand.
Seconds passed where nothing happened. Only the noise of the second hand from an annoying fucking clock sounded from somewhere in the room. Then she fell back on the bed in a huff, looked up at the ceiling, and played with the tips of her hair.
“He’s away,” she began. “In Toronto. He doesn’t care about me. He sleeps with whomever he chooses.”
“I don’t need to know about your life.” Cal’s eyes were dull. His chest squeezed him. His throat felt the same. Tight. “It’s none of my business. Why bother telling—?”
“Because … I need you.”
Cal stared at this woman, into the periwinkle blue of her eyes, hating what it was in her that reminded him of himself, wishing to squelch it, stomp on it, put it out, knowing whatever lay between them would never be enough to end it. The loneliness always found its way back out.
“We don’t make love anymore,” she continued, and Cal sat beside her on the bed. “We hardly speak. He treats me like a—”
Cal touched her thigh, causing her to stop telling the tales women have spat for centuries, then he moved that same hand across her skin, toward her chest until his palm came to rest beneath her chin.
“What do you need?” A single finger caressed her bottom lip.
“You.”
“Don’t fucking move.”
After making his way to the bathroom, he grabbed a condom, ignoring the familiar face of regret in the mirror, ignoring the drawer full of personal effects of a man — a stranger whose wife he’d fucked. Several times. He silenced the same loud voice inside his head telling him he was wrong and stupid and selfish and went back to the needy, lonely woman in the bed.
A woman who had said she needed him.
She. Needed. Him.
For something.
It was something, even if it was only this.
The moment he returned, he trailed a hand from the crown of her head to her waist, following the length of her locks, grazing her nipples along the way, watching what he controlled. His cause and her effect. The pulse beating in her neck. The goosepimples popping all over her skin.
He glanced up.
Their eyes met.
Then his palm flew to her nape. “You need me?” He bunched several strands of her hair in his fist and pulled. He squeezed harder. Her eyes watered. “What do you need?”
His tongue went into her mouth before she could reply, making her squirm and whimper while his fingers danced along her folds. Already she was wet, and already he was lost, floating inside the place where the slate was clean, the chalkboard was black — where nothing but bodies and skin asked the questions and satisfaction and orgasms provided the answers.
“What do you need?” he repeated, yanking on her hair again.
“Say my name,” she choked out, her head shifting side to side, still in his grasp, her eyes opening and closing. “Say my name first.”
Cal shoved two fingers into her hole, and she cried out.
“What do you need, Reegan?” Their lips centimeters apart, Cal pulled on her locks, moved his digits in and out. Everything harsh. Harsher. Perfect. “What?” Cal’s fingers curved, finding her G-spot; she gasped for air. “Say. It.”
“I need to be fucked,” she burst, already sounding on the verge of exploding.
What Cal needed was for her to forget where she was, who she was — to forget that what could never be cured attempted to own them.
“Fuck me,” she begged, her lithe body twisting rhythmically over the sheets.
Cal positioned himself, knees on either side of her legs, and rolled the condom down his length.
“Fuck me.” She shivered, opening and closing her eyes again, playing with her nipples. “Fuck me, please.”
Cal grabbed her hips, pushed open her thighs, and filled her body.
All. The. Way.
Even if it was only this… He needed something as well, something to placate The Lonely and dissolve the façade he no longer enjoyed displaying.
He needed something.
For a moment.
And right now it would be this flapper with the blue-star-flower eyes and a gaze emptier than his.